The Rainbow Maker's Tale (13 page)

“No problem!”

Turning towards the sound, I
saw Joel weaving swiftly between tables heading in our direction
talking loudly over his shoulder as he went. His tall body angled
gracefully around the seated diners, even though he was looking in
the opposite direction. It didn’t look like he was going to trip
over his own feet and land face first in someone’s lunch any time
soon.
Shame.

“I’ll grab that for you, I want
some more juice anyway,” he called out. Following Joel’s line of
sight, my chest swelled happily as I recognised a familiar face
sitting at a corner table towards the back of the canteen.

“Hey!” Joel bellowed in
greeting, when he noticed me watching him approach.

“Hey,” I echoed more quietly.
“Are you still eating?” It was too far away for me to tell if
Cassie had any food left or not.

“Nah, nearly finished. Just
getting some more juice and Cassie’s vitamin tablet.”

“Right,” I nodded slowly,
trying to disguise any disappointment in my voice.

“We’ll be here for a bit
though. I think Cassie’s still finishing – we’re sat over there.”
Joel turned and pointed out the area I was already moving
towards.

Trying to ignore the little
grumpy niggle I felt at Joel referring to Cassie and himself as
we
, I moved forwards.
Could I be any more deluded?!
We – WE – he was simply using a standard convention of language. I
shook my head, trying to dismiss the fact that I was just not
normal.

Winding through the other
diners, I could sense Olivia following closely behind. Even that
wasn’t enough to wipe the smile from my face as I approached
Cassie’s table. At five paces away Cassie looked up unexpectedly,
her face filling with a beautiful smile when she saw me. Violent
warmth exploded in my chest in response and it took all the control
I could muster to stop me tossing my food tray aside and leaping
across the remaining gap. I would have to get a grip on myself,
this was beyond desperate!

Dropping into a seat across
from Cassie, I flicked a brief glance in her direction. “How’s your
morning been?” My voice sounded impressively nonchalant, in spite
of the loud hammering in my rib cage. I concentrated on my
movements carefully as I unpacked the contents of my tray onto the
table and stowed it away, worried that my shaking hands might
accidentally throw my lunch into Cassie’s face. Finally, I settled
into place, trying to ignore Olivia as she sat close beside me.

“Great,” Cassie enthused,
answering my question. It sounded like an automatic response, but
when she continued speaking I knew that she was telling the truth.
“Better than I thought it might be actually.”

“Oh good,” I was glad that her
worries had come to nothing after all. Then I noticed Joel winding
himself into the chair next to Cassie and wondered if there might
be another reason for her sudden change of heart.
That
would
not make me so happy.

Cassie smiled friendlily at
Joel as he handed her a vitamin tablet; it made me uncomfortable to
see her so easily allowing someone else to look after her.

As if that could be you
!
I scoffed at myself as the errant thought flashed through my mind.
I wanted to argue back, but the voice was right. Why bother making
a connection with someone if I was committed to the course of
action I’d promised myself I was?

I wanted to break out of the
Family Quarter and if Cassie was able to help me work out how to do
it, then that was fine. Allowing this much was already a
significant change to my original plan, and it was a decision I was
still questioning every minute. But I couldn’t, and shouldn’t,
involve her any more than I had to. It wasn’t fair, and it was an
unknown danger I would not inflict on her. I needed to get it
straight inside my head: Cassie was a source of information,
nothing more.

Cassie is a source of
information
, I repeated as my eyes roamed over her face,
dropping lower to the curve of her throat where her day suit was
slightly unbuttoned at the top and then…STOP!

What part of a “source of
information” was I unclear on?

OK – so my head had got the
message loud and clear, even if my hormones disagreed.

Trying to distract myself, I
opened my mouth thinking to say something else, but my appetite for
both my lunch and the conversation had vanished, so I closed it
silently. There was a short period of quiet at the table – highly
shocking as Olivia was sat with us – while those of us with food
focused on eating. My fork dipped and rose between my mouth and
plate as I forced the unnoticed food items down my throat in a bid
to distract myself from my morbid observations. I felt myself
wallowing. It didn’t matter that I knew it was the right thing to
try and stay away from Cassie – I still
wanted
something
else.

“How’s your day been so far?”
Cassie asked, finally disturbing the silence. Even without looking
at her I knew that the question was directed at me and so I hurried
to swallow the mouthful of food I was chewing. But I was not fast
enough and Olivia elected to answer on my behalf.

“It’s been wonderful,” she
prattled excitedly, looking around the table, presumably ensuring
that all eyes were on her. My mean streak was really working
overtime today. “We’ve been all through The Clinic and seen our
parents – they work on the same ward funnily enough – ”

“Funny,” Cassie smiled back at
her, sarcasm infusing the single word she uttered. I almost choked
on my mouthful of food as I laughed silently at her response: you
could hear Cassie rolling her eyes as she spoke. Of course, Olivia
was oblivious and continued regardless. Karl and Rachel had the
misfortune of joining us as she hit full flow and I knew, just from
my experience that morning that there was no stopping her now.

Very much relieved for once
that I was not alone, I ducked my head down and concentrated on
eating, taking things more slowly this time. At least with a bigger
audience I did not have to give Olivia the same level of attention
she’d been demanding from me all morning. Rachel seemed to be
responsive enough and made all the right noises as Olivia
continued. I was grateful for the respite.

Keeping my head low I peeked
surreptitiously in Cassie’s direction. She had been looking around
the occupants of the table as Olivia spoke, before becoming
particularly interested in Joel I noticed. I wasn’t the only one. A
moment later Joel glanced up and saw her looking at him; she didn’t
notice his pleased smile as she turned away. But I did, and I saw
the blush that crept onto her cheeks as well.
Was it
embarrassment or something else?
I considered her expression as
Cassie focused her attention back on Olivia.

The red faded from Cassie’s
cheeks as I watched. Then she noticed my gaze and turned towards
me. For once I didn’t look away – she was drawing my attention
completely – even though I could sense that Cassie felt
uncomfortable under my scrutiny. She was the one who turned away
eventually, listening to Olivia once more as I returned to my
lunch.

A minute later, Cassie stood up
abruptly, her plate in her hand. “I’m heading back to The Clinic
now, I’ll see you later.”

“Hang on a minute, I’ll come
with you,” I told Cassie, letting my fork fall onto the half-eaten
plate of food with a soft clatter. There was no time for her to
decline my offer, as I gathered up our remaining utensils and
followed her towards the disposal area, near to the serving
hatches. “See you later,” I called behind me to the others as I
went.

As we approached the exit I
pulled Cassie’s tray from her fingers, indicating with a small bob
of my head that I was attempting to be gentlemanly. For a second I
thought she was going to pull it out of my reach, but then seemed
to change her mind. Turning my back to Cassie as I moved into the
disposal area, I carefully split my leftovers between the two
plates before sliding them onto the small conveyor belt. I’d only
eaten half of my assigned meal and knew it would flag up as a fault
and report to my parents if I didn’t do something to cover up the
fact. Over two plates I was confident it would be below the
acceptable food wastage level and not show up.

“You didn’t have to join me,”
Cassie muttered, once I’d deposited our trays and left the canteen.
She sounded a little tetchy and I wondered if that was because of
my earlier behaviour.

“I know. I just wanted to talk
to you.” I replied, ignoring the light hostility in her tone. She
nodded in acceptance, but did not say anything else. I got the
distinct impression that Cassie was going to make me speak if I
wanted to talk to her and I smiled to myself at that thought. Smart
girl, I acknowledged, not letting me push her into making small
talk. “So, how’ve you
really
found it this morning?”

“Good – like I said before –
better than I expected,” she was frank but not unfriendly.

“Why’s that?” I probed, hoping
to draw her into the conversation.

“Well, for one thing, Joel’s
pretty good company and so the time has gone quickly. But, there’s
also more happening at The Clinic than I realised before.”

Yeah, that’s what I didn’t want
to hear, I muttered silently and drifted away into slightly
unpleasant musings for a few minutes. My thoughts made the monster
in my stomach snarl restlessly.

“Is today what
you
expected?”

Cassie’s question broke into my
thoughts – her impatience with my daydreaming rather obvious in her
tone.

“Mostly,” I replied thinking
back to that morning. Of course, I’d not really built up any
expectations: I had only made my plans to join this rotation two
days ago and that decision was based purely on wanting to spend
time with Cassie to find out if she did know anything that might
help me with my
hobbies
. A huff of irritated air escaped my
lungs as I recalled the one difficult aspect of the placement so
far. “I could do without the running commentary from Olivia,” I
admitted, before wondering whether I should be so honest with
Cassie, when I was being negative.

“Has it been a bit hard
work?”

I smirked a little at the
blatantly false tone of innocence in Cassie’s question. “I think
you know
exactly
what it’s been like for me this morning.” I
told her, working up to a contemptuous scowl whilst still
controlling my own amusement. Cassie saw straight through me and a
mischievous grin lit up her face as we walked back inside The
Clinic.

“I don’t suppose having Olivia
as a partner suited your quieter side, then?”

She chuckled when I shook my
head glumly. “You suppose right,” I agreed, meeting her gaze.
Cassie’s eyes locked onto mine and in the few seconds that we stood
there I could think of nothing else but her and how it felt to be
close to her. It was a chore to pull myself together: I could have
happily drifted a lot longer standing staring at her. If I did that
I had no doubt she would soon see my inner stalker peering out at
her. Or perhaps Cassie would see something even worse, if I allowed
myself the indulgence of getting close to her. I looked away.

“She seems very nice and
everything,” I said, returning back to our most recent topic of
conversation and trying to sound normal, not mean. “But definitely
not for me.” I hoped that Cassie would hear the insistence in my
voice when I said this – not that it would matter – but I had to
say it for myself all the same.

* * *

My knees felt stiff from
sitting cross-legged, but that didn’t make me move. I was still too
shocked to think about doing anything productive, and so I stayed
where I was. I was a statue, holding a test tube and questioning my
life.

My personal mini-screen –
re-wired and programmed to my own specification – was balanced on
my legs, open at the page I had just discovered. I had never
thought to look for urine analysis records before. As ever, new
knowledge of my world brought only more questions. Today’s question
was: why would my vitamin tablets contain oestrogen and
dopamine?

I stared at the graph filling
the screen. It told me that as natural testosterone levels in my
body had increased, the changes were identified through urine
samples, taken every time I visited the bathroom. Periodically,
where changes had been registered, I had apparently reached
trigger points
– marked on the graph with red asterisks –
and had more accurate blood samples taken to verify the
testosterone levels. I recalled the blood samples being taken:
donation days at school…iron level testing…general health checks.
None of it was for what they said it was, and the results had been
used to confirm adjustments to my daily vitamin supplements. The
follow up reports, on the associated screens that I could click
through to, told me that all of this was being used to fine-tune my
body chemistry.

Oestrogen and dopamine…it was
to reduce my testosterone levels.

“Damn it!”

My fist slammed into the grass
beside me leaving a clear dent in the soil and crushed blades
beneath my knuckles. Was all of this to control us…? Was it to stop
us being self-destructive and
real
…? This was part of our
very nature! And it was being taken away without our knowledge.

I wouldn’t be taking my
‘vitamins’ again, of that I was sure!

I took a deep breath and tried
to calm down. Was this any worse than knowing that someone could
listen to our conversations and private communications?

Perhaps it was connected…?

Well, I already had a plan that
would help me with this; I would just implement it sooner than
intended. First I needed to change my urine results: according to
the monitoring system, I was heading towards another trigger point
soon. In a few seconds I adjusted my numbers back into the
normal
range and made a mental note to return to the system
daily to keep them that way.